textproduct: Quad Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Cold temperatures still in line for tonight with a freeze likely for counties along and north of I-80.

- Accumulating snow is still expected to graze our southwestern counties late tonight into early Tuesday morning.

- More significant rainfall and higher coverage still possible Thursday into Friday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 215 PM CDT Mon Apr 6 2026

Tonight...Seasonably strong ridge center will slide out of the Dakotas into WI through Tuesday morning, while LLVL cyclogenesis tries to organize just to the lee of the Rockies/southeast CO. This will make a squeeze play between the two processes and look to really tighten LLVL baroclinicity from acrs the central plains down to the OH RVR Valley tonight into Tuesday. With wave propagation along this zone it will set up a classic elevated F-gen forcing event overnight into Tue from eastern NE to just east of the STL area. Extent of saturation and omegas in vertical temp profiles really take off in the dendritic layer, making for a narrow but heavy snow event somewhere from around Omaha to Kirksville MO. Right now the accepted heavier snow zone looks to occur acrs southwest IA, with decent amounts then trailing along the IA/MO border with high snowfall rates occurring at night allowing for some accumulation even into the far southwestern portion of the DVN CWA. For our area of concern, will advertise 1-2 inches of wet/low LSR snow acrs the western and southwestern portions of Scotland and Clark Counties MO, and amounts then tapering off to a few tenths along and south of a line from Fairfield IA, to Macomb IL by Tue morning.

As for temps and hard freeze potential tonight, the areas that are now susceptible and open to freeze headlines(southern third of the DVN CWA) will be blanketed by clouds and light precip. This will make it hard for low temps to dip into the hard freeze realm in the south and will not issue any freeze warning. Areas north of I-80 should get into the upper to mid 20s even with a bit of higher/ thinner cloud cover but these more northern areas are still at least a week away from needing any freeze headlines.

Tuesday...The large ridge will slide off more to the east allowing for return flow warming especially aloft later in the day and into Tue night. At the surface under a likely inversion it will be cool inn the 40s and cloudy with lingering patchy precip trying to develop and spread more northward especially Tue afternoon and evening. Thermal profiles suggest more light snow or flurries for much of the day , before the WAA aloft makes more of a mix with rain, snow and even possibly some ice pellets into Tue night. Expect non-diurnal temp trends later Tue night into Wed morning with increasing return flow finally toward the surface.

LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 215 PM CDT Mon Apr 6 2026

The latest ensembles and upper jet progs continue to show more southerly flow and moisture return off the western Gulf as this mid to late week period progresses. A few showers will be possible on Wednesday, but still appears enough dry time and gusty south winds/BL flow to boost temps into the 60s to near 70 on Wed. The ensemble upper jet patterns still show upper troffiness developing acrs the northern and central plains, while a LLVL boundary organizes and pushes acrs the upper Midwest acting as a precip focal point later Wed into Thu. Then signs of this feature eventually laying out along west-to-east tightening LLVL baroclinicity and flattened westerly steering flow into Fri and even Saturday. This boundary will continue to be a convergent focus for southerly warm moist conveyor to impinge upon and over for more robust precipitation events for the late week timeframe, but where this front lays out is still a bit uncertain.

After a southward boundary-shunted trend in the solutions yesterday, today's runs are back further north making for the potential of heavy rain acrs IA into northern IL Thursday night. Then after that the boundary may then get shunted far enough south by another round of high pressure acrs the upper MS RVR Valley and western GRT LKS for a dry Friday afternoon into Saturday. Of course the boundary trends may continue to change in coming runs for better confidence in precip coverage and magnitudes for the mid to late week.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 620 PM CDT Mon Apr 6 2026

High pressure will build into eastern Iowa and northwest Illinois leading to prevailing VFR through this TAF cycle. A narrow band of rain changing to snow is expected to develop a tier of counties to the southwest of BRL late tonight and last into Tuesday morning. BRL may have a period of lower ceilings between 3000 - 5000 ft AGL; however, do not expect precipitation at this time. For all the terminals, NW winds this evening will gradually veer to the NNE tonight and then the SE by midday Tuesday.

DVN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IA...None. IL...None. MO...None.